Liverpool and other English clubs should work together with Uefa
Everybody’s quite worked up over the Uefa-Liverpool tiff on the behavior of Liverpool supporters at the Champions League final in Athens some 2 weeks ago.
The BBC has, as usual, done a good job of collecting the quotes from all the interested parties, so for a quick refresher go read that.
To me, the situation smacks of ridiculous stands on both sides and an argument that has turned into England vs Europe quite needlessly.
We have Richard Caborn - the sports minister - rise to defend England’s honour and laying the blame at Uefa’s feet, completely ignoring the fact that regardless of security measures, it WAS Liverpool fans who caused problems at the final, not anyone else.
Uefa are not pointing fingers - they don’t need to.
However, Uefa are to blame as well. They knew what had to be done, and yet they stupidly believed that fans would behave themselves (what world are they living in?).
So we have one side who expects fans to be angels and then is disappointed when they’re not, and the other side expecting fans to be assholes who steal tickets from children (gotta love that bit, paints a very bad picture doesn’t it) and then show indignation when someone criticises that behavior (’yea, we’re assholes, how dare you point fingers at us! Why didn’t you get your security right!?’)
Caborn did say something sensible (unlike Parry, who was bent on quoting pointless statistics to his advantage and forgot that his club’s fans were in the wrong):
“This is about finding solutions, not looking back and saying what has happened but more about how to stop this happening in the future”
Very true.
English clubs need to look at how they can prevent incidents involving their fans in Europe from happening again. Manchester United and Liverpool have both been involved this season. United, you can argue, were provoked both times and Liverpool can make the same case, but the bottom line is that both sides are to blame and if English clubs want to bring about change in Europe their fans will need to behave first.
Uefa needs to pull it’s head out of it’s ass and start dealing more strictly with stadiums / clubs involved in crowd / fan violence. Roma fans were largely responsible for the trouble in the first leg of the Man Utd - Roma quarterfinal, yet the club got a minimal fine.
Uefa also need to work with clubs and local police in preventing accidents like those at Roma, Lille, Sevilla and Athens. If European police is going to hit first and ask questions later, things will only get worse. If stadiums and match organisation is not going to prepare for extra fans and implement proper security measures, we will see more problems next season, not less.
Andy Knott (Liverpool fanzine Red All Over) spoke some sense, and some nonsense (i’m not printing the nonsense):
“It’s a culmination of everything.
The Liverpool fans weren’t innocent and a lot of them have got to have a look at themselves and take that into account.
But at the same time Uefa have got to look at it and instead of trying to give token games to people with big stadiums, they’ve got to do it in a proper way.”
17k tickets were never going to be enough. But 17k tickets weren’t the problem - unruly fans and poor organisation were to blame.
Liverpool and Uefa both must shoulder the blame, look at where they’ve gone wrong, learn from it and help football be safer for fans next season. It’s not hard to do once you commit yourself to do it and refuse to tolerate poorly-behaving fans or shoddy organisation.
And please, let’s not bring out old skeletons, shall we?
For the record, I think Liverpool fans *should* have behaved properly - excusing rowdy behavior and accepting it from the word go is disrespectful and gives people too much license - you can argue then that Roma fans were right to charge the divider and that United fans are right in acting in provocation.
And, for the record, Uefa should have done a much better job of handling this.
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Discussion - 18 Responses
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I don’t think anyone would argue against the fact that both Liverpool or United fans have been partially responsible for what has happened this year, but the fact remains that UEFA and Guillard continue to act with open hostility towards English fans (irrespective of club). Please can you explain to me what Guillard was hoping to achieve through his ridiculous “worst fans in Europe” slur? (Other than of course to cover his and UEFA’s arse from any form of blame for the shambolic organisation in Athens - incompetence that borders on negligence!!)
The furore hasn’t got anything to do with “England v Europe”, but is instead is driven by an urgent need to stop English football fans (who are in the majority of cases a passionate and fun-loving away support) being treated like dirt by UEFA. I call on all fans of clubs that have been treated in this way to come together and demand that UEFA gets its house in order - the first step of which should be the immediate sacking of William Guillard! (A man who has previously gone on record as saying that racism in football is a mere technicality?! - How can this man act as a spokesperson for European football when he won’t even acknowledge the seriousness of racism in football??)
err… were you there? I was.
I’m not going to try and defend those Liverpool fans that did perpetrate the alleged incidents (I say alleged as I didn’t witness them). However, I would like to pick you up on a point that you made “it WAS Liverpool fans who caused problems at the final, not anyone else”. Do you know this because you witnessed this?
Let me share my experience(I remind you I was there). Liverpool fans were held back and held back, till it got to a critical stage and a natural nervousness ensued, which bred anxiety amongst the fans, big, small, female, male. I can tell you that I did witness the Athens police standing to one side some smoking, some just chatting and generally being careless about the crushing and panic. What happended after, where the police and waded in with batons as reported was wholely down to their inability to govern the situation in the first place. You could further argue that they inturn were put in this situation by UEFAs negligent planning.
I would therefore like to contest that there is some blame on Athens police despite your remark?
Finally, if you want to report on something that has been witnessed by others and you are using their eyewitness accounts to make a statement, please get it right. Unfortunatley the internet gives a forum to those that wish to air their opinion, which is healthy yet extremely dangerous. Please be aware there’s alot of people out therewho believe anything they read!
Kieran Davis
I definitely agree that local authorities are to blame as well - in essence, all parties are to blame and as Caborn says, we need to fix this (but for that to happen all sides need to collaborate).
You make the point about the only sain person making comment’s was the guy saying we need to look to the future and find solutions…liverpool FC told Uefa about their sollutions before anything even happened. It’s no good saying let’s look for solutions if, when your given advanced warning about something you do nothing about it? There was wrong doing on both sides of course. I’m not making excuses for liverpool FC but if your the people organising the event you should organise it properly. Uefa is ment to be setting the example and Uefa should be held responsible as the buck stops with them.
The fact is that liverpool warned fifa about what would happen - that there was lots of forged tickets in circulation and acknownedged that some fans will get in ‘by hook or crook’. Liverpool predicted what would happen and acknowledged that we have a wanker element amongst our fans. However, UEFA chose to do nothing. No turnstiles??? A stadium that small with little allocation to genuine fans who make the game what it is??? Its complete utter bollox. UEFA should stop passing the buck. It is they who fucked up. Give football back to the fans next year. Play it in an 80000+ stadium with 35000 allocated to each team
Every Liverpool forum has thousands of posts condemning the low-lifes that ruined the final for so many honest supporters.
The mistake you’re making (and this goes for virtually everyone else commenting on this issue) is in failing to distinguish between these two groups.
Let me give you an example: lets say you like tennis and you’re a big Andrew Murray fan. Murray makes the final at Wimbledon (don’t laugh)and at great expense you get hold of two Centre Court tickets. You’re queuing to get in, but just as you get to the front, a braying toff in a striped blazer snatches the tickets from your hands and walks through the turnstiles with them.
An unlikely scenario of course, but if it happened you would be outraged. You would remonstrate with the turnstile operator, demand to see the manager, call for police assistance and bloody well expect something to be done about it. And quite rightly too.
Now suppose the police, far from hunting down the culprit, attack you with batons and pepper spray you and your young daughter. Suppose the LTA man’s response is “Murray fans caused this problem, you only have yourself to blame”. How do you feel now.
Look, its about responsibility. Ordinary folk expect the authorities and the police to do something to protect them from the predations of these dishonest scumbags, and they have a responsibility to do that. The fact that there were more thieves and gatecrashers than expected doesn’t allow them to pass any of that responsibility over to ordinary people. It certainly doesn’t give them the right to treat the innocent victims as though they were the perpetrators of the crime, even if the innocent victims are Liverpool fans.
You should all grow up and stop complaining, this article is actually very impartial fair on Liverpool FC, it would be very easy to launch an attack on the inconsiderate idiots who snuck in without even thinking of the safety of others. “We warned you” “Uefa it messed up”. How come there was no trouble caused by AC Milan fans? There were about 80 teams in the competition when the final venue was decided, why on Earth should UEFA have to bend over backwards because one of these 80 teams can’t control there fans?
If a company hosts a dinner party and one of the workers stabs another one to death with a fish knife is it the companies fault for providing knives?
MDH you said “If a company hosts a dinner party and one of the workers stabs another one to death with a fish knife is it the companies fault for providing knives?”
Actually, the company might be to blame if Bill and Ben had a history of falling out at company dinners and the MD had been warned that Bill had sworn to go for Ben with a fish knife if ever he, Bill and the aforesaid knife were found in the same room.
MDH you are missing the point completely. The ground was not fit to host a European Cup Final and should never have been picked as a venue. Fans from English based clubs will always travel in greater numbers than that of teams from either Spain or Italy - that is a fact. There was not any trouble from the AC Milan fans because they had enough tickets and further returned a small percentage of their allocation back to UEFA. I am not justifying the actions of the LFC fans, but you need to realise that the same trouble in Athens would have happened if it was Man Utd or Chelsea in the final because of the poor policing and ticket checking (or lack of it).
Counterfeit tickets are not something new in football. The German police stated forged tickets are rife for big games during the World Cup last year. However, the reason why there was little trouble was because turnstiles and adequate tickets checks were put in place, thus allowing genuine ticket holders in to watch the game they paid for.
What will it take for a rounded view on what can be accepted and what is clearly not. To be fair there are two English issues here.
1. The English are always dealt with differently. (I am also English so don’t lynch me just yet)
2. The mindless minority that prey on the difference and that are then largely absolved of any blame by their own. Unfortunately this seems endemic to the Liverpool culture. It’s almost akin to honor amongst thieves.
Look I know I’m being slightly disingenuous to the people of the Liverpool but the point I’m making is every country across Europe is different and it’s about time that we as English people actually traveled to foreign shores with our best foot forward and not the drunken, selfish or ignorant behavior that we have become accustomed to every Friday evening across England. Lets try and improve our standards and not lower Europes standards to cope with our poor apologetic approach to everyday life.
If we truly value individual rights then we our selves need stop eroding the rights of the many.
Get this right then we really have the right to ask UEFA to sort their game out.
Well there you go Yorkie, you yourself are pretty much admitting that there is a problem with Liverpool fans, which is why the report was there in the first place. Its not right that a club have 10,000 flying with the premeditated intention of sneaking in just as its not right having someone going to a party with the premeditated intention of stabbing someone.
Beard, you make a fair point and my post was a bit skewed, but it is still hugely irritating listening to fans and even worse your chief executive flat out denying that you did anything wrong and absolving responsility from a load of selfish idiots who stole from the hands of genuine fans and could easily have ended up killing others. Its simply inexcusable, just accept that sadly among the Liverpool fan base there are a section of idiots. Im sure most of you fans know the kind Im talking about and Im also sure most of you dont want them associated with your football club. Are you more likely to solve these problems by delluding yourselves and denying they exist or by actually taking note of whats going on, having a look at yourselves in the mirror and taking steps to improve?
Response to MDH ….
If you look at the various LFC fan forums on the internet , you will see there is widespread condemnation of the minority who caused some of the problems in Athens.How exactly do you come to the conclusion that the club and its supporters are in total denial of any responsibility from the Club perspective.
The official stance form the club has been in a similar vein .
I hear many comments here about who should have done what, and it is not our fault, it is some body else’s fault. UEFA holds the upper hand by stating that all the Football clubs in Europe have forfeited their rights in favour of joining UEFA. Certain characters in UEFA have been cunningly manipulated the situation in the past to drum up their own agenda at the expense of other European football clubs. Clubs like Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich & the likes were and are very happy when Guillard locked horns with Chelsea over Frisk Fiasco which Chelsea had a legitimate case. This precedent showed UEFA is being run by elements that do not hold genuine football interests at their hearts. These mobs have gone to the extent that monopolising the power in the exclusion zone called the corridor of power. I wonder if Mr. Parry “Liverpool FC Chief Exec.” and Guillard understand the world irony!
Lets be honest here, liverpool fans for years and throughout history have been surounded with trouble wherever they travel to so this latest dispute isnt anything new. I mean they are poorly behaved and give the rest of english fans bad names. I think the Sun all them years back it the nail on the head with what they published and UEFA are again correct now.
Imagine for a minute, that the final was scheduled for the San Siro. Now imagine, Uefa told Milan fans “you only get 10′000 seats for your supporters”, do you really think for one minute the Milan fans would not behave immaculatley???
Answers on a postcard.
The fact is for every English team, a away game in Europe is just like a home match. We don’t see any barriers when it comes to supporting our team.
I dont justify in any way, the actions of SOME Liverpool fans, but for Uefa to single them out in there report is disgusting. Uefa have an amazing ability to find somebody to blame for something they cause.
Another point i would like to make, is how Uefa can say a English team is the most problamatic when not just a few months ago, Serie A was in turmoil due to the barbaric behavior of Italian fans (including the death of a police officer) taht lead to games being held behind closed doors.
Uefa needs to stop hiding and start organizing events properly.
Dave 28
Do you have the capacity to think about things from more than one perspective? Your argument of Uefa being at fault for their ticket distribution is ridiculous and typifies the deluded attitude that makes so many Liverpool fans incomprehensibly annoying.
How does having THE SAME AMOUNT of tickets as the other team for a neutral ground make you victims? What on earth gives Liverpool the divine right to more tickets than AC Milan? If UEFA did decide to give Liverpool more tickets than AC Milan would it be fair? No it wouldn’t and it would cause UEFA a huge problem as they would then have to do the give preferential treatment in every other final from then on, a near impossible task to do fairly without creating conflict and resentment. If you wor working for UEFA, or a school or consultancy company or hospital or anything what happpens when you give prefferential treatment to one person? stucture and order goes to pot and your job becomes 10 times harder. And if that happened you would have every right to complain wouldn’t you……….
Like I said initially, both sides are responsible - Liverpool are responsible for their ticketless army while Uefa are responsible for their organisation of the game.
What I’d like to see with Uefa is a standardised method of dealing with fans and ticketing issues - and I think they can learn a lot from English clubs just as some English fans have a lot to learn about behaving themselves.